Category: Technology

Why no one is reading your blog…

You want to throw a party and have lots of people show up.
You want to have a successful blog but you want people to read it.

It’s a trick
So here’s the trick (and it really is a mental trick).  You have to write a blog post like someone is reading it…even if no one is.  Anyone who knows how to use Google and can “cut and paste” can add analytics to their site to see exactly how many people are visiting.  Here’s my advice…add analytics and then ignore them.  They’re too discouraging and in the end it’s not the point.  CNN.com has a lot more visits than your web site and they always will.  So what?  If your goal is to spread your ideas then start spreading them one post at a time.  You’ll know when your ideas are spreading, trust me.

How do I get traffic?
Somebody cares about what you’re saying.  If no one seems to care then talk about something else or change how you’re delivering your message.  But, somebody cares.  Let’s go back to the party comparison.  If you don’t come to my party guess what…I’m not coming to yours.  So if you want me to come to your blog then come to mine and let me know how to get back to yours.  If you want readers then spread the love.  Spend time at other blogs and then go back to yours regularly and write like someone is reading it.

You better have a frosty beverage for me
The other reason you need to write like someone is reading is that one day, when you do start to get visitors you’ll need something for them to read.  Blogs archive your entries so they’ll have a treasure trove of info that you’ve written if you post before they show up. Not regularly posting to your blog or creating content of any kind (podcast, ebooks etc.) and inviting me to visit your site is like inviting me to a party without having any good beer to drink or any food to snack on.  When I get there…I expect something from you.  It’s bad news if you expect those people to come back if they didn’t find anything the first time they showed up…they’re not likely to return.


Action points:

  • Install analytics on your site
  • Ignore the analytics for a long time
  • Comment on other sites every day (you can start with this blog).  Commenting on the big blogs can get you traffic…not from the big names but from other people who leave comments (happened to me this week).
  • Write a post a week (minimum).  But please write something.
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Want to beta test my new course?

A couple of weeks ago, I announced that my “Social Media Academy” course would be available April 5. I’m looking for three to five beta testers to help me perfect the content. The course is very much still in it’s infancy stages, but I am looking for a few people who would like to participate in testing the course as I build it…

This course is mean to address what I feel is a huge gap in the social media space — there seems to be no shortage of strategists who are generating demand by describing the social media ‘promised land’ but they leave seminar attendees wondering how do they take the next step. My focus will be on the practical tactics and tools outlined in my series ‘Top 10 Tactics and Tools for Tightening your Tribe’. It is meant for solopreneurs, small business owners, organizational leaders or marketing professionals who want to add social media to their mix but still want to get home for supper. You know what I mean? No one has more time in their days — “how can I add social media and without adding hours”? is the thrust of the course.

In exchange for helping me beta test the course, the participants will of course get free access to the course materials as I create and publish them, as well as semi-private coaching and the opportunity to potentially earn some money by promoting the course as affiliates when I launch it. Questions? Feedback? Comment, call or contact me to get more details…

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Handling Email; 5+ emails you should filter

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Email is such a simple tool but it makes or breaks so many people’s productivity and it breaks my heart to see how many people struggle with handling it…

“How many emails do you have in your inbox right now? Are you an inbox zero freak like me? Or do you have emails piled up and unread that you’re hoping you’ll get time to get to?

I’m not judging – I used to have as messy an inbox as anyone. And even now, if I go on vacation or don’t check my email for too long, I can get in a heap of trouble: the email piles up, and it can be a real chore getting back to my empty inbox.

I’ve got a few tips up my sleeve though to make dealing with email a little less painful – and I’ve found the best defense is a strong offense. In this article, I’m going to give you some concrete tips and examples to reduce the number of emails in your inbox instantly – and help you keep it that way long term with the use of filters.” Source: 5 Types of Emails You Should be Automatically Filtering – Stepcase Lifehack

Here are the 5 types:

  • Newsletters
  • Forwarded articles
  • Comments and pings from my blog
  • Facebook/Twitter/Social Media Notifications
  • Store Promotions
  • cc:’s [This one is my own — and I’ll explain later]

You’ll have to go to the source if you’re interested in the full rationale behind these statements. #6 [the one I added] comes from seeing how email is used as a CYA tool in large corporations. I have a friend — let’s call her Sue — Sue is an important mucky-muck at a large manufacturing organization and she’s stuck in email hell. She’s a slave to Outlook and her BlackBerry. I would venture to say that 70% or more of the email she receives is CYA. How much easier Sue’s life would be if she’d only use Outlook to put all the emails where her name appears on the cc: line in a special folder to read later when she had more time. Or used the filter on her BlackBerry Enterprise Server to only send her the emails where her name appeared on the to: line. Sigh!

As the author says, these filters work particularly well with Gmail or Google Apps [both of which I use] to manage mail effectively.

“Once you’ve created some of these filters, GMail (what I use) has an option to immediately run them on whatever you’ve got in your inbox. Use this to instantly filter low priority items away so you can focus on what’s important.

Going forward, your filters will be applied to any new email that comes in. This will keep your inbox clean so you can read the relevant, important emails first, before you head to your folders to deal with these low priority emails that may still be important to you – but don’t require as quick a response.” Source: 5 Types of Emails You Should be Automatically Filtering – Stepcase Lifehack

One more thought for those of you unlucky enough to be on MY emailing target list. I send ‘just in case’ info from my personal gmail account and important ‘just in time’ email from my e1evation account. If you’re smart, you’ll filter emails from toddlohenry@gmail.com and make sure emails from todd@e1evation.com are granted the HIGHEST priority! Those of you who are prolific emailers may want to grant your frequent recipients a similar escape hatch…

As always, I invite readers to comment, call or contact me and let me know what YOU think [or ask for help if they’re caught in email hell!]…

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Thought leadership. It’s not just for geeks anymore!

Kevin Naze, one of my favorite outdoor writers, of the Green Bay Press Gazette writes…

Dave Nolan is a family man on a mission of faith.

While part of it includes finding a new career after an 18-year stint in the automotive industry ended when General Motors decided to stop making Saturns, another component to his master plan is getting more people to look beyond the world’s values.

“My dream job would be to have a career in sync with my passions — the outdoors partnered with the Christian ministry,” Nolan said. “My goal is to be the face of an organization and build relationships with an organization that shares the same passions.” Source: De Pere’s Nolan following a new path | greenbaypressgazette.com | Green Bay Press-Gazette

What thrills me most about this is knowing the backstory. You see, Dave is a client of e1evation, llc and a good friend to boot. I was with him when his job at Saturn was pulled out from under him and I’ve been there every step of the way as he has made his decision to follow his passion and follow God’s lead into a career in the ‘outdoors’…

Dave is using the good, fast and cheap tools I advocate to build his business. He’s still taking baby steps at Dave Nolan Outdoors, but he’s making all the right moves. Track his progress! This guy’s a thought leader who is going places and he’s partnering with e1evation, llc to make it happen…

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How often should I post?

The icon used by Apple to represent Podcasting.
Image via Wikipedia

Let’s start here…

“Without question, blogging provides an effective way to market your business, be a valuable resource and build your personal brand online. And most folks know that, generally, the more frequently you blog, the higher your traffic. But does that mean you should follow the advice of many to create a new post every single day?

Focusing only on traffic numbers, instead of the concentrating on sharing content and building relationships will send you down the path to burnout. Here at WebWorkerDaily, we have multiple writers contributing to help keep the content fresh. But for one-person blogs, blogging daily works for some and not for others.” Source: Just How Often Should You Blog? – WebWorkerDaily

Go to the source for some good thoughts on ‘how often’ — it’s really good stuff! In the meantime, I’m heading in another direction…

I just closed out my best blogging month ever traffic-wise. What was significant to me was that I did it in a ‘short’ month with no speaking engagements. Usually, when I have a chance to speak, my traffic spikes because all the seminar attendees check out my site — it’s usually good for a couple hundred pageviews. In February, however, I did it all on my own, post by post by post. I’ve already laid out all my tactics and tools in the series “Top 10 Tactics and Tools for Tightening your Tribe” and yes, I used them all this past month. I did make two significant changes, however. #1 I redesigned my site using the ‘Thesis’ theme which promises some kind of magic SEO foo and really seems to have delivered for me. #2 I experimented with spreading my posts out throughout the day. Instead of posting 3-5 posts at 6:00 AM, I spread them out every two hours or so throughout the day. Whether it was one, or the other, or both, my traffic’s going nuts!

HubSpot gives me a grade of 96 on my site, Google tells me I have 6,076 pageviews over the past 30 days and Alexa tells me my site is ranked 484,123 in the US. Not much left to prove from my perspective and the thing that excites me most is that my success is the result of a systematic process I can teach to anyone. I usually benchmark myself against local radio station WTAQ because I like to see how I fare against ‘old’ media in my market. They have an Alexa ranking of 116,615 which is really awesome. It thrills me that I’m actually ranked higher than local social media wunderkind Dana VanDen Heuvel [a good friend to e1evation], although I’m sure that won’t last long. He’s at 520,219…

I’m certain my traffic will drop some during the upcoming month as I’ll be directing a great deal of my creative energy toward three projects I announced in February. They are the Social Media Academy — an online training class on the top tactics and tools for effective social media, The Damn Good Social Media Guide — the accompanying ebook, and last? A weekly podcast. I’m currently looking for beta testers for the Social Media course. If you’d like to save yourself the $499 fee and get all the content in a rough format for free, comment, call or contact me and let me know. As always, thanks for reading…

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Taking your expertise for granted

Logo of Posterous
Image via Wikipedia

This post from Darren Rowse has me thinking about myself and the people in my trusted network…

“I recently was chatting with a new blogger and they made the comment that after 3 weeks of blogging that they’d run out of things to write about. They had written 10 posts so far but felt that they’d nothing else to share of value on the topic.

What surprised me about their comments was that the blogger was actually a seasoned pro in their niche. They were new to blogging about their topic but they’d been working in their industry for 25 years and were seen as an expert in their field…. yet they didn’t feel like they had anything to say about the topic!

I dug a little deeper and it turned out that the reason for their issue was not that they didn’t have much to write about – but that they were taking for granted the level of knowledge that they actually had. Much of what they’d learned over the years was now so basic to them that they didn’t realise how valuable it was for someone at a lower level of expertise.” Source: What Are You Taking For Granted That Might Be Useful to Others?

Are you one of those that doesn’t appreciate the fact that she’s an expert? Well — you’re wrong! You don’t get to this point in life without having gained expertise at something. Your expertise might only be interesting to 100 people on the planet, but by blogging, you’ll find them. Or more likely they’ll find you…

Having taught classes before on ‘finding your gift’, the one thing I’ve learned is that the more you exercise your ‘gift’, the more it feels like breathing. In other words, it becomes so natural that it’s just a part of you. And who would be interested in little old you?

Well? Your wrong. You’re an expert and your point of view is interesting to other people who aren’t as far along their path. Or who are. Or who are ahead of you. Here’s a dirty little secret; there are no experts. The body of knowledge is expanding so fast that no one can master it all. Your point of view is a valuable part of the puzzle but no one will ever know it unless you make your point of view public; searchable, findable and knowable!

How do you get started? I’ve researched all the tools and I haven’t found anything easier or more powerful than Posterous and the Posterous bookmarklet. Your expertise can turn you into a thought leader if you’ll only publish and promote your work! Comment, call or contact me to discuss how this applies to your business if I didn’t make myself clear…

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I love Google Voice!

Image representing Google Voice as depicted in...
Image via CrunchBase

I’ve been a user since the Grand Central days and I love it. Here’s another perspective…

“When I first heard about Google Voice, I immediately submitted my email for an invite, and within a few weeks I received one. April first provided a review of Google Voice and offered 100 invites right here at MUO. Since then, Google continued to progress with Google Voice and add more features.

My initial excitement about Voice quickly faded when I learned that Google Voice will not let you port over your home number yet – although you can use your mobile number, but you’ll be limited to primarily only using the voicemail feature. As I’ve been waiting patiently for Google to offer home number porting (which Google’s help page promises is a feature that’s “coming soon”), I’ve noticed that more cool features keep getting added on to the service, so I thought it’s about time for a list of 5 cool things that you can do with Google Voice.” Source: 5 Cool Things You Can Do With Google Voice

Go to the source for the ‘5 Cool Things’…

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Getting it together

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Your online presence, that is…

“If you’re reading this post, there’s a good chance you have multiple online profiles scattered across various services, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, and Twitter. And one problem you may face is pulling all of this information together to build a single online identity — be it for personal use, or to create a professional online profile. Flavors.me is a new site launching today that looks to make this as simple as possible, and it does so with flying colors. After a three month long private beta, the site has just launched to the public.” Source: Flavors.me: A Dead Simple Way To Pull Your Online Presences Into One Place

I tried flavors.me. It’s cute. My take? It’s primarily geared toward casual online users that what a kind of internet ‘business card’ that puts all your online properties in one place…

If you’re really serious about getting it together on the internet, there are two tools that I recommend you use; Retaggr and Google profiles…

Retaggr has been around longer than Google profiles and I started using it over a year ago. Retaggr, which identifies itself as the ‘definitive online profile’ allows you to add your user name to any of the hundreds of social media tools they have inventoried. The result will be a nice profile like this that brings together all the stuff you’re doing online — they even give you a way to include the profile in your email signature!

More recently, Google has begun to offer a similar type of service. While it does not offer some of the bells and whistles that Retaggr [like widgets and gadgets, etc.] it does have the advantage of being smack on the Google backbone…

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6f2ywgldeiY&feature=player_embedded

Fortunately/unfortunately, we’ve read this book before and Google wins in the end — at least for the next 5 years or so. So, if you’re going to pick one or the other, check out Google profiles if you’re serious about putting together a social media dashboard for people you are hoping will find you…

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Citrix ‘jumps the shark’ with new pricing model

WebEx Communications
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OK, I’m officially pissed. I’ve been a massive Citrix advocate influencing dozens, if not hundreds, for over 5 years since GoToMeeting first came on the scene and I discovered I could deliver high-quality online meetings for a year for the price of one month of WebEx…

Recently, I evaluated GoToTraining and was getting ready to utilize it for my new ‘Social Media Academy’ training program. I was stunned when I saw Citrix’s new pricing model…

GoToWebinar used to seat 1000 people for the flat rate of $99 per month. Now the price is $499. WTH? In a down economy, Citrix is sticking it to their customers with a 500% increase. If you want to train 200 people in GoToTraining it will set you back $349. Only GoToMeeting has held the line on pricing at $49 [although I know a secret that will get you a $39 monthly rate — you’ll have to get me offline for that one!]…

Citrix, it’s bad enough that your reseller program sucks, but this is an over the top stoopid move — you’re no longer on my recommended list of products [Wall Street take note!]…

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Driving traffic using Twitter?

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Start here…

“If you are a small business owner like me, then you are no stranger to the fact that learning how to master Twitter can seem a little bit like wrestling a hungry alligator. Meaning, there is a steep learning curve and if you mess up it can be deadly.

Figuratively speaking, of course!

After using Twitter for the past couple of years, and following a lot of trial and error, below are ten ways that I think you can begin to use Twitter to drive more traffic to your small business blog.” Source: Top Ten Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Small Business Blog Using Twitter

Go to the source to get the 10 ways!

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TGIM!

Have a laugh at Apple’s expense…

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I’m playing around…

…with a new site template this morning. Please take a minute to offer your opinion on the new site design…

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Put your business on the map

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Small business owners should pay heed to the opportunities presented by mobile social media as the number of smartphone users climbs…

“Small businesses stand to increase their local audience and further their market reach through geolocation platforms, which attach real-world locations to mobile phones. Here are a few ways companies can become part of the location tagging world of social media.” Source: HOW TO: Make Your Small Business Geolocation-Ready

The place to start, however, is with Google Maps which is fast becoming the ‘Yellow Pages’ of the internet. Watch this…

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lviDz8fUMTE&feature=player_embedded

One thing to be aware of. Google has a STOOPID process for adding you to the map…

“First you’ll need your PIN, which should arrive in the mail within two weeks after you submit your business listing. If you have your PIN, enter it beside the appropriate listing below, then click ‘Go.'” Source: Google Local Business Center

You have to receive a pin via SNAIL MAIL. It’s the dumbest process in the entire Googlesphere but the benefits are worth the pain in the butt. imho, it’s one of the simplest and most effective ways a company can advertise their business. The information you enter about your business goes directly into the Google search engine and is immediately available to all those geeks who use Google Maps on their desktops or better yet, on their smartphones as they travel through your town…

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Ponder this 2/20/2010

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Here are a couple of things to think about this weekend in the social media space…

“Whom do we increasingly trust less? Us.

It’s a finding that strikes at the foundation of many a social-media marketing philosophy: Tapping into peer-to-peer networks is a way for marketers to tell authentic, credible stories to consumers whose confidence in corporate CEOs, news outlets, government officials and industry analysts has taken a beating. But according to Edelman’s latest Trust Barometer, the number of people who view their friends and peers as credible sources of information about a company dropped by almost half, from 45% to 25%, since 2008. ” Source: Social Media: Consumers Trust Their Friends Less – Advertising Age – News

Some things to avoid…

“Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about the state of social media, and I’m reminded of where we were in the mid-90s with the advent of the web. I lived and worked through Web 1.0, and am feeling a sense of déjà vu as we play out the same routines with Web 2.0 and beyond: social media is getting the same basic adoption patterns, the same reactions and overreactions. It’s just different tools and terminology. We have a long way to go before everyone and their cousin uses social networks more than they email, or tweets more than they call, but nobody can deny the way we communicate has once again been changed forever.” Source: 10 Things to Avoid In Social Media – WebWorkerDaily

If those two didn’t discourage you, here are some thoughts on getting social…

“Nowadays everyone wants social in their sites and applications. It’s become a basic requirement in consumer web software and is slowly infiltrating the enterprise as well. So what’s a designer to do when confronted with the requirements to “add social”? Designing social interfaces is more than just slapping on Twitter-like or Facebook-like features onto your site. Not all features are created equal and sometimes a little bit can go a long way. It’s important to consider your audience, your product—what your users will be rallying around and why they would want to become engaged with it and each other, and that you can approach this in a systematic way, a little bit at a time.” Source: 5 Steps to Building Social Experiences – Boxes and Arrows: The design behind the design

Finally, some thoughts on Google Buzz…

“If you still haven’t made up your mind yet about Buzz, here are some useful tips for customizing and automating the service so that it can work with your other social networks. We’ll also look at some ways to share messages and links via Buzz with specific groups, which could make it a useful tool for the workplace.” Source: Google Buzz Tips and Tricks – WebWorkerDaily

My jury on Buzz is still out. You?

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Google Shopper

So glad I switched to Android…

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=du_G_xJw8WA&feature=player_embedded

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Google Living Stories

California - Santa Rosa: Snoopy's Gallery & Gi...
Image by wallyg via Flickr

Google is like the Lucy van Pelt of media. She is quoted as saying “I’m torn between the desire to create and the desire to destroy.”…

“Today, a new Google project popped up in Google Labs (Google Labs) that is a unique extension of this effort. It’s called Living Stories, and its goal is to provide a new and efficient way to read news coverage on breaking stories from one location. Oh, and it’s enlisted The New York Times and the Washington Post for help.” Source: Google and Top Newspapers Experiment with a New Way to Deliver the News

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZhCY9FF608

Another tool I’d be checking out if I were a news anchor!

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7 social media tools for the news media

If I were a news media journalist what social media tools would I use to make my job easier? I attended a social media panel this morning hosted by news media journalists moving into the social media space and it made me think a lot about what tools I would use if I were in their shoes. Here’s what comes to mind…

First of all, I’d act like an editor and treat the millions of content creators on the internet as my personal little cub reporters. I’d harvest their content and build my stories using the following tools:

When it came to sharing the stuff I’d found, I’d use Shareaholic and some combination of the following tools to promote my reporting:

btw, I cheated on the first line — there are really nine tools in this post, but Google Reader + Google Alerts + Feedly all act as one unit to deliver a ‘virtual newspaper’ or magazine jam packed with valuable source content. Socialmention and Tweetmeme are good for ‘taking the pulse’ of a topic. The other tools depend on what type of tools are use for promoting content that’s been posted online. It kind of assumes the media outlet has a YouTube channel, etc., but that may be a pretty big assumption. Personally, I think the combination of Shareaholic + Posterous is the killer combination for promotion. Learn these two tools and you’ll be able to grab content FROM anywhere and post it TO anywhere so easily that you’ll be able add all those additional posting responsibilities without breaking a sweat!

If this list seems daunting or the post has you scratching your head, comment, call or contact and I’ll break it down for you. Happy deadlines!

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The Samsung Moment…

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…is everything the iPhone should have been!

“In case you haven’t noticed, the Google Android dam has broken. For almost a year, HTC was the only manufacturer to offer handsets with the operating system, but in the past month, Motorola and Samsung almost fell over each other to offer Android smartphones of their own. Moto gave us the satisfying Cliq and Samsung countered with the Moment. Though we’re not sure which “Moment” Samsung is referring to (the company’s product names baffle us regularly), it’s clear that Sammy is taking its Android endeavor seriously. The Moment offers everything you’d expect from an Android phone while adding Sprint-specific media services. Other features are plentiful, and the sturdy design and comfortable physical keyboard offer a nice contrast to Sprint’s other Android phone, the HTC Hero. The Android OS still has its quirks, camera-editing options are nonexistent, and we had a few performance complaints, but at $179 with service, the Moment, aka the M900, is cheaper than T-Mobile’s Android options. ” Source: Samsung Moment (Sprint) Smartphone reviews – CNET Reviews

3 reasons why:

  • Reliable network
  • Sliding keyboard
  • Open, multitasking operating system
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Au revoir iPhone!

Yesterday I said goodbye to the iPhone and along with it, Apple as well. While I was working on the AGCO social media project, my good friend and partner on the project David Sauter of Envano had been kind enough to let me use an iPhone [I think he was secretly trying to bring me back into the Apple fold] until he hired a new account manager and yesterday my love/hate relationship with the iPhone — and Apple — came to an end when I returned the phone to Envano. It takes a lot of Apple to lose the love of a fanboi like me, but at the end of the day, to paraphrase the great Ronald Reagan “I didn’t leave Apple, Apple left me…

It wasn’t so much dissatisfaction with the iPhone that brought me to this point — it actually had much more to do with the iPad announcement. As Alex Payne lamented…

“”The iPad leaves me with the feeling that Apple’s interests and values going forward are deeply divergent from my own. The future of personal computing that the iPad shows us is both seductive and dystopian. It’s not a future I want to bring into my home.”” Source: Alex Payne on the iPad | Smarterware

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